Immigration, Yes—and No

A trimmer's case against open borders and closed minds

The Western Roman Empire officially came to an end in AD 476, with the deposition of Romulus Augustus. Many people learn that its fall came about due to invading barbarians. There is an element of truth in this, but it would be closer to reality to say that these were immigrating barbarians. For most of these groups were not setting out to conquer Roman territory; what they wanted was to become a partof the empire and to reap the advantages of its law and order and economic prosperity.

If Rome had adopted open borders, would this have fixed the problem, perhaps by making the immigration process more peaceful and less of an invasion? No—more likely the Western Empire simply would’ve been overwhelmed earlier, while the Romans were great assimilators—Spain was so Romanized that by the second century AD no legions needed to be stationed there—it took several generations for the process to work. If too many immigrants came in too fast, Roman institutions would be swamped before assimilation took place.

The Romans allowed numerous barbarian groups to come into the empire and settle. But they controlled immigration as long as they could, letting in groups of 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 at a time, and then directing where they could settle. Only when the Romans lost control of their borders did the influx became overwhelming and the Western Empire fall.

Similar examples are not hard to find. The native inhabitants of North America also suffered from an immigration problem, one that almost led to their extinction. The culture of Celtic England largely disappeared in the face of Germanic immigration. Today, the massive numbers of Han Chinese moving to Tibet and Xinjiang threaten to eliminate the Tibetan and Uyghur cultures. The point of these examples is not that any of them is exactly like the immigration situation in United States: there are obvious differences.

But one popular position among some on the American right today is advocacy of “open borders,” an idea whose supporters include neoconservative globalists, corporate Republicans, and many libertarians. My argument, contra those advocates of open borders, is that it certainly is possible to have too many immigrants, if one cares about the survival of one’s culture. But it is also possible to have too few. And that is why I am an immigration trimmer.

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Imagine someone posing a question to a group of medical professionals: should all of your patients eat more or less food? Isn’t the question itself a bit ridiculous? A sensible doctor will say, “Neither, it depends upon the circumstances. Someone can eat too little or too much. I would need to examine the particular case of each patient.” But on the topic of immigration, many pundits seem unable to adopt this commonsensical view and instead try to treat immigration as an unalloyed good or a disease to be avoided if at all possible.

Lord Halifax sought peaceful compromise between the pro- and anti-Stuart forces threatening England with a new civil war in the late 1600s, a position he set out in a famous pamphlet, “The Character of a Trimmer.” “Trimmer” is sometimes used as a term of abuse by those prone to go to extremes themselves: the trimmer is without principles, he dodges and weaves between the stances of extremists. But I suggest that it should be thought of as a compliment. As a student of Aristotle—hardly a man without principles—I generally suspect that extreme views are expressions of vice and that the path of virtue will involve holding to a course between their hazards.

The Romans were adept trimmers. The historian Polybius praised their constitution as properly blending the virtues of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. And their pragmatism was on display in their dealings with non-Roman peoples. They knew they could not erect a huge fence at the border of their empire to keep out all who sought to enjoy its benefits, but they could, and for a long time did, control their influx so as to minimize its disruptive effects.

If we are to seek such a virtuous mean in our immigration policy, what ought we to consider? We can usefully partition the issue into three major divisions: we should look at the economic effects of immigration, the cultural effects, and the morality of allowing or forbidding immigrants into a polity.

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The primary reason that people seek to move to the United States—or Britain, or Canada, or any prosperous nation—is the opportunity to achieve a better standard of living. Such a universal human aspiration surely should not be condemned. Even illegal immigrants are risking legal sanctions for an admirable motive. Why would anyone object to people trying to better their material wellbeing?

A common concern voiced by immigration foes is that immigrants will take jobs away from Americans. Certainly immigration increases the supply of workers, which might tend to lower the employment opportunities and wages of natives. But just as surely, immigration also increases the demand for workers: immigrants need houses and roads and food and schools, and someone has to supply them. So the balance here could go either way.

What’s more, there is little hard evidence that the troubles of lower- and middle-class America in recent years have been caused to any great extent by immigration. In his book Average Is Over, economist Tyler Cowen notes:

Harvard professor George Borjas, a leading critic of our current immigration policies, has presented evidence that immigrants have lowered the wages of high school dropouts, in the long run, by 4.8 percent. But the wages of many other Americans have risen … And that’s what the major immigration critic finds. Other estimates of the effects of immigration are considerably more positive in terms of the effect on American wages.

But these economic facts are true in a world with controlled immigration. Would they still hold in a world of open borders?

To understand what the result of a flood of newcomers would be, we have to ask why it is that an immigrant to the United States can better his condition by moving here from Laos or Nigeria or Nicaragua. Generally, economists agree that it’s because each worker here is backed by a much greater amount of human, social, and physical capital than would be the case in his native country. (The worker’s own human capital is identical in either situation, but that of the people he works with may be higher.) So long as not too many people are immigrating at once, this will continue to hold true.

But imagine an archipelago of 100 islands, each of which, due to the limits of their natural resources, can barely support 100 hunter-gatherers. If all of the islands but one have 100 people, and that island only has 10, then some of those on the crowded islands can benefit by moving to the emptier one. But if 90 of them do so, then the target island will simply be reduced to the same subsistence living as all of the others.

This is very much the situation of a rich country in a poorer world, except that the rich country has, chiefly, not more abundant natural capital but more abundant human, social, and physical capital. Should the United States completely open its borders, the equilibrium position we would expect is that immigration would continue until the wage differential between American workers and developing world workers disappeared.

The other thing to consider is how immigrants may change the economic policies of their new country. Franklin Roosevelt, hardly a hero to libertarian advocates of open borders, was elected in a large part because of the votes of immigrants or their sons and daughters. If, absent restrictions, many more left-leaning immigrants had entered the country before the Great Depression, who knows how far left our politics might have shifted?

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But the most important effects of mass immigration are cultural, and not economic. The proponents of open-borders often note the large number of Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th century have all assimilated. Ironically enough, this “pro-immigrant” view makes the immigrants passive recipients of an unchanging native culture. But not only do immigrants assimilate to the culture, the culture also assimilates to the immigrants, and the greater their number the more it does so. Given that the immigrants are not arriving from utopia or heaven—and why would anyone possibly emigrate from those places?—the changes they bring to a culture will inevitably be a mixed bag.

My own ancestors contributed to America some lively folk music, a large number of good pubs, and a huge increase in the quantity of amusing after-dinner speakers. But on the downside they also brought us Tammany Hall, increased gang violence, and perhaps worst of all, Irish cooking.

The proponents of open borders typically ignore this cultural question altogether. But a culture is created by people living together for extended periods of time, and it can only be learned after many years of immersion. (If you have a teenage child, you will viscerally understand this point.) Immigrants can assimilate to a new culture, but they cannot do so instantly. Furthermore, as their numbers increase, it becomes less likely that they will assimilate and more likely that they will swamp the native culture with their own.

European emigration to the New World is an instructive case in point: if Native Americans had been able to limit the flow of European immigrants, they might have been able to preserve their land and cultures. But, lacking the idea of territorial sovereignty, they could only deal with these immigrants through unconditional welcome or violence. When violence failed, their culture was overwhelmed, and it has largely disappeared. If we value our own culture, we might not want this to happen to it.

Similarly, highly liberal cultures such as those of the Netherlands and Norway are today dealing with the emergence of immigrant-filled, high-crime slums; nationalist parties; and anti-immigrant violence, all of which might have been avoided through better control of immigration in the first place.

We should also consider the effect of immigration on the cultures that the immigrants are coming from. What we should ultimately want for Laos, Nigeria, or Nicaragua is not that their brightest and most energetic people continually leave and become Americans but that those countries become prosperous themselves. If we really value cultural diversity, there is no substitute for these diverse cultures flourishing in their native soil.

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The last of the issues on immigration is moral: given the modern consensus that no person counts for more than another one in ethical reasoning, can restrictions on immigration—which seem to privilege the existing inhabitants of a polity at the expense of those currently outside it—possibly be justified?

I quite agree that we should consider each human being to be ultimately as important as any other. But that does not mean that we, as agents situated in a particular place and time, cannot justifiably give more weight to how our acts will affect those nearer and dearer to us than those more distant. I hope that every child in the world gets a good education, but I am first and foremost responsible for seeing that my own children get one.

Aristotle disputed Plato’s communist view of how the guardians in his model republic ought to live by noting the inherent tendency for each of us to care for our own offspring. Friedrich Hayek can be seen as extending Aristotle’s insight with his stress on how each actor is best situated to evaluate his own “particular circumstances of time and place.” This applies just as much to our attempts to help others as to our efforts to best utilize factors of production: I am much more likely to be successful in my effort to help my next-door neighbor than I am likely to be in trying to help a homeless person in Latvia, because I can personally evaluate my neighbor’s circumstances, while I have little idea what are the real problems plaguing the Latvian indigent.

Open borders advocates often try to paint any regulation of immigration as deeply immoral. For instance, George Mason University economics professor Bryan Caplan, taking an absolutist position on immigration, writes: “Third World exile is not a morally permissible response.”

Let us set aside the fact that referring to people who are simply staying put where they are as being “exiled” is rather bizarre. What Caplan has done, in common with all ideologues, is to take a one-sided and partial truth and treat it as if it is an absolute and unconditional truth. Of course it is a good thing to help people out of Third World poverty. But again, an analogy is apropos. If, after a ship capsizes, we find ourselves on a lifeboat, surrounded by victims flailing in the water, we should save as many of them as we can. But how many is that? Only so many as will not capsize our own boat, a result that would help no one.

Poverty is not, generally speaking, the fault of those who are wealthy. (There are exceptions to this generality, such as cases where one people’s land was simply seized by another people.) While the rich have an obligation to help the poor, that obligation does not extend to the degree that they must become poor themselves.

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If the above “on the one hand, but on the other hand” analysis is at all persuasive, naturally the question arises: “OK, the issue is complicated: so what should our immigration policy look like, once we acknowledge that fact?”

The first thing a good trimmer should say in response is to admit that we do not know exactly where the golden mean lies between too many immigrants and too few. But at least if we admit that both possibilities exist, we can begin to grope towards pragmatic policies that acknowledge the real truths behind the contentions of the extremists in the pro- and anti-immigration camps and attempt to guide policy with each of these partial truths in mind.

The immigration trimmer is thus likely to reject the most extreme proposals of the anti-immigration camp: giant border fences and frequent requests by law enforcement officials to “show me your papers” are threats to the freedom of every American. Here we see a practical complement to our moral case for allowing as much immigration as we can bear: not only is it right to help the less well-off when we can do so with little harm to ourselves, but it turns out to be very costly, in terms of both physical resources and lost civil liberties, to reduce immigration. Therefore, we should not try to do so until the number of immigrants becomes a serious problem.

On the other hand, the trimmer realizes that uncontrolled immigration would transform America beyond recognition and in directions that will likely horrify most open borders advocates. Short of establishing an American police state, what practical measures can be taken to regulate the flow of immigrants to our country?

I have spent years thinking about this problem without arriving at any sound-bite solution. I console myself with the thought that when someone does propose a slogan as a solution to a complex problem, he has almost surely oversimplified it. But there are proposals out there worthy of consideration.

For instance, Ron Unz’s recommendation to raise the minimum wage as a means of controlling immigration should be entertained. The sale of visas is another approach with potential, one that has been explored in the British Parliament. A lowering of barriers to the import of developing world products into wealthy countries seems an obvious step: United States agricultural subsidies and tariffs, for instance, depress the earnings of many people in poorer countries and increase the incentive for them to try to come here, to the benefit of a small number of planters in America.

However we choose to cope with the immigration issue, if our nation is to survive as an effective unit of social organization, it must have the ability to control its borders. We should do so wisely, with charity towards those worse off than us and in a way that constrains the liberty of those already inside our borders as little as possible. My own life has been enhanced beyond measure by the influence of immigrants: my wife is an immigrant from the Philippines; I came to understand music due to my mentor from Ghana; and I spent many years playing in reggae bands with immigrants from Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, Haiti, and Antigua. I want the continued influx of their ilk to keep enriching my country. But I also want the culture in which I was raised to survive that influx. So call me a “trimmer”: I embrace the term proudly.

Gene Callahan teaches economics at SUNY Purchase and is the author of Oakeshott on Rome and America.

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42 Responses to Immigration, Yes—and No

Sensible piece that is not overwhelmed with left wing or right wing ignorance. Even if I do disagree somewhat with some of the points, this is an actual rational attempt to tackle a highly complex problem, and for that I applaud the author.

Sadly, politics like this would never sell anymore, and in an increasingly polarized American political landscape, to try and force people to come to the same conclusion like that (even if it is the more or less right one) might just tear this nation apart. Too many extreme white racists, and too many highly ethnocentric minority groups overlaid with an (un)healthy far left layer which still thinks that white’s dominate society.

Perhaps maybe in the future we may get to see an article covering the more “practical” political side of implementing such an approach?

It wasn’t clear to me how exactly “giant border fences…are threats to the freedom of every American.” Is the idea that America might turn into another North Korea, and then the fences will keep Americans from escaping?

I just don’t see border fences as all that threatening to Americans. What am I missing here?

Third world people make third world nations. Look at Iceland vs Mexico, for instance. Compare climate, natural resources, etc. Now compare standard of living, scientific innovation, education, etc etc etc.

Iceland somehow pulls off this miracle because it’s full of *Icelanders*. Mexico fails at what should be an easy layup because it’s full of *Mexicans*. It’s really no more difficult than that.

Advances in robotic technology will eliminate 20 million jobs over the next decade or so we are told by the experts .What will all the displaced workers do ? We already have trouble with workers dropping out of the workforce, going on disability and finding only part time work when full time work is desired. We need a pause to assimilate those legal immigrants already here and a chance to evaluate our future needs. Join numbersusa.com and have your voice heard .

Thank you for this thought-provoking essay. I’m very glad you emphasized the positive benefits of cultural fusion. If a culture needs to protect itself by walling itself off from outside influences, it’s already effectively dead or dying. Lively and vibrant cultures are capable of constructively assimilating foreign influences. In fact, that’s what ‘cultivates’ a culture. One of the most positive and beneficial things about having so many Spanish speakers in the United States is that it gives Americans a chance to improve their notoriously pathetic record with foreign languages. Recently, Forbes argued that we need to ‘ask parents to urge their children to attain proficiency in a foreign language, whether or not schools require them to do so’http://www.forbes.com/sites/collegeprose/2012/08/27/americas-foreign-language-deficit/
What a great opportunity with millions of Spanish speakers in the country for people to break out of their insularity and learn what it feels like to think and feel in a language and culture foreign to their own. Openness, fusion, and syncretism are the marks of healthy cultures. But your Aristotelian point still stands. It’s all about the right measure. But certainly, the right measure is never zero. That spells insularity and cultural sclerosis.
One other thing you didn’t mention is the effect on social security and other pay-as-you-go systems. The SS Administration estimated a net benefit of about $250 billion in the next ten years from the recently shelved immigration bill.

Well, there’s some differences though. Most of our SW border towns are largely Hispanic, and have historically been that way.There’s colonial Spanish influence from FL through the Gulf States, too.You’re not likely to find employment on the US/Mexico border if you aren’t bilingual.You may even have difficulty shopping if you don’t speak Spanish in some US bordertown businesses.
For states bordering Mexico, culturally speaking, it’s a done deal.The rest of the US
is also experiencing cultural change to some extent.Outside of criminal activity, I think change immigration brings is a good thing overall.Goodness knows, without it we’d be shrinking.
I do realize, though, that illegal immigrants are vulnerable to much exploitation & dangers-on both sides of the border- & wish we could make entry for work easier to obtain.

Well, I’m convinced. Open the borders! I’m anxious to see the demise of the American Empire. Indeed, let’s learn the lesson the Roman Empire teaches.

On the other hand, perhaps the ruling elite would enjoy having the world move here. Think of how much easier it would be for them to exploit and micromanage the lives of every human on the planet if they didn’t have to run about the world conducting both covert and overt operations to control the global population.

The Germanic peoples (Visigoths etal)–the “immigrating barbarians” referred to in this article, were actually fleeing from the onslaught of another barbarian-the Huns. Those who emigrate to the US, legally or otherwise, are also fleeing from something–usually Third World poverty and/or political oppression. A type of “Fight or Flight” syndrome writ large. So, what to do…what to do? This piece comes closest to representing my own view on immigration. Far be it for me, a child of German and Irish immigrants, to tell a person from Africa, Mexico or China that they cannot come to this country to make a better life for themselves and their families, but at what point to we draw the line? At what point does a trickle evolve into a steady stream, thence into a flood. Wish I knew the answer!

Or without mass immigration, maybe native-born Americans would be able to have larger families.

I’m very glad you emphasized the positive benefits of cultural fusion. If a culture needs to protect itself by walling itself off from outside influences, it’s already effectively dead or dying. Lively and vibrant cultures are capable of constructively assimilating foreign influences.

Except that even if we assume cultural fusion to be good, our current system works against assimilation, because we are discouraged from asserting that our own culture has the rebuttable presumption of supremacy. We don’t make foreign cultures prove their customs to us, and then adopt the ones that we like and leave behind the rest. WE assume that the foreign culture has equal legitimacy with ours. As long as we have a suicidal preference for the Other, walling ourselves off is the only means of defense. If we are to not wall ourselves off, we also need to make it socially unacceptable to worry about “white privilege” and “racism” needs to be something that we consider to have been solved other than a few minor exceptions. Otherwise, allowing foreign influences is suicidal.

I appreciate that this article is attempting to be moderate and give both sides their due. The first two sections, as well as the repeated point about the fate of the American Indians, are quite good. Nevertheless, the presuppositions of this author are basically materialist libertarianism. There are a number of points of error and faulty reasoning.

Even illegal immigrants are risking legal sanctions for an admirable motive. Why would anyone object to people trying to better their material wellbeing?

In the process of “trying to better their material well-being,” many illegal aliens engage in identity theft, drug and human trafficking, rampant drunk driving, or driving unlicensed and uninsured, gang formation (MS13, Latin Kings), all manner of violent crime (e.g., remember Chandra Levy? Who killed her? Hint: it wasn’t that Congressman), lots of litter and other damage to public parks and conservation areas, and let’s not forget terrorism (such as at least four of the September 11th hijackers).

In any case, if I come over to your house and crash on your couch without your permission, and eat the food in your fridge, because I am trying to better myself materially, do you not have the right to object, and to seek to expel me from your property, by force if necessary?

But just as surely, immigration also increases the demand for workers: immigrants need houses and roads and food and schools, and someone has to supply them

This works only if the immigrants have sufficient human capital — basically IQ plus a culture of bourgeois values — to produce more value than they consume. Many of our current immigrants are net drains on our economy and government finances.

The proponents of open-borders often note the large number of Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants to the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th century have all assimilated

They fail to note that that assimilation was faciliated by the “racist” immigration curtailment of 1924, which lasted 40 years, plus the “racist,” politically incorrect, self-confident WASP culture which squeezed the Old World ways out of the immigrants and compelled them to conform to native American norms.

The last of the issues on immigration is moral: given the modern consensus that no person counts for more than another one in ethical reasoning, can restrictions on immigration—which seem to privilege the existing inhabitants of a polity at the expense of those currently outside it—possibly be justified?

Leftists and neocons don’t really believe this. Sure, they claim to do so, but they don’t. In their moral universe, non-whites count more than whites, non-Christians more than Christians, homosexuals more than heteros, pretentious elites and ignorant mobs over the middle classes.

Open-borders advocates never complain of the restrictive (and almost always frankly discriminatory) immigration policies of non-white countries, or Israel. Only prosperous white nations are not morally permitted to control their borders.

For instance, Ron Unz’s recommendation to raise the minimum wage as a means of controlling immigration should be entertained

Nice thought, but a failure if employers just pay immigrants in cash, a scheme in which many foreigners would be happy to acquiesce — indeed, that many illegals are already do.

It also ignores the reality that failing to rein in the numbers of people allowed in the country creates powerful political constituencies for yet more immigration — whether the cheap labor lobby or the ethnic activists.

” Most of our SW border towns are largely Hispanic, and have historically been that way.”

1) That has zero to do with current immigration from Mexico.

2) It is also largely wrong, especially in the case of California. In 1970, only 11% of Californian’s were ‘hispanic surnamed’ as they called it then, in 1950, only 10%.

“I think change immigration brings is a good thing overall.Goodness knows, without it we’d be shrinking.”

Who knows what the native population would be doing in terms of ‘growth’ — which is not in itself a good thing — if houses in mass immigration impacted areas weren’t ridiculously expensive and taxes ridiculously high (both due to immigration).

“What a great opportunity with millions of Spanish speakers in the country for people to break out of their insularity and learn what it feels like to think and feel in a language and culture foreign to their own. “

“The SS Administration estimated a net benefit of about $250 billion in the next ten years from the recently shelved immigration bill.”

The costs of immigrants are born by local government entities. Nearly 3/4 of Mexican immigrant-headed households receive some sort of federal government aid (mostly food aid in the form of ‘free’ school lunches).

Immigrants from Mexico and central America are net tax drains. That’s why California’s sales tax has risen 40% in the last 25 years.

“Except that even if we assume cultural fusion to be good, our current system works against assimilation, because we are discouraged from asserting that our own culture has the rebuttable presumption of supremacy.”

What is our “American” Culture? Are we not the mongrels of the world? Whatever happened to describing America as the Melting Pot? I don’t advocate immigration without end or limits but “walling ourselves off” to keep out brown people based on some idea of a homogeneous America that never existed is laughable.

According to the Forbes article, only 18% of Americans report speaking a language other than English, while 53% of Europeans (and increasing numbers in other parts of the world) can converse in a second language.
I would suggest this widespread cultural ignorance is a big part of the reason the native culture is so defensive, insular, and stagnant. But perhaps your definition of ‘culture’ is one that abandons the etymological link to ‘cultivation’.

M_Young,
I don’t have any of the data you mention before me, but every immigrant’s child born in the US becomes a citizen.So “immigrant headed” families are often families of US citizens & if not, will soon be.

” Most of our SW border towns are largely Hispanic, and have historically been that way.”

1) That has zero to do with current immigration from Mexico.”
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That was the point I was trying to make.It has to do with culture.And that culture had been established for a very long time.

If you want to understand the current immigration issue as it pertains to the use of immigrants. One need look no further than Mexico in the 19th Century. She utilized immigrants to secure her property without ever assimilating them or requiring them to bid allegiance to Mexico.

In the end the system backfired on Mexico. And the same is true of the US. Importing immigrants merely for cheap labor when one has ready supply of labour in country is going to backfire, it we leave it unchecked.

“In any case, if I come over to your house and crash on your couch without your permission, and eat the food in your fridge, because I am trying to better myself materially, do you not have the right to object, and to seek to expel me from your property, by force if necessary?”

Yes, we do have that right…but we also have the right to say “forget about it” and let them live there. (Many libertarians would disagree with me about the first half of that sentence, with borders restricting people’s inherent right to free movement and all that.)

That said, your example isn’t exactly accurate. Your grandparents kicked the original occupants out of the house, after all. The rights of descendents of invaders versus the rights of invaders…it’d make for an interesting court case.

There have been some good attempts to define or create a distinct American culture, but I think those attempts kind of fizzled out after the FDR years. Let’s call it from Roosevelt till Roosevelt.
Break out some war bonnets, add some totem poles – and don’t forget your cowboy hats.
There is nothing more odd about that than it was odd for Victorians to go ape over Boudicca.

Authenticity does not come out of thin air, it must be built on a historical fundament. The objective truth behind that fundament is irrelevant – it is the sharing of the Myth that maketh authenticity.

But obviously, the myth of America as a WASP country is not shared widely enough to treat it as authentic. The current debate makes that plain enough.

“I don’t have any of the data you mention before me, but every immigrant’s child born in the US becomes a citizen.So “immigrant headed” families are often families of US citizens & if not, will soon be.”

Logically, if the immigrants aren’t here, then there kids wouldn’t get the outdated ‘birthright citizenship’ which all countries that had it except US and Canada have done away with.

“According to the Forbes article, only 18% of Americans report speaking a language other than English, while 53% of Europeans (and increasing numbers in other parts of the world) can converse in a second language.”

Which is why the supposed language promoting aspects of immigration as lame. Most European countries have far lower levels of immigration, yet manage to teach their children foreign languages.

It really hasn’t. Certainly in California. The first Spanish settlement in California was in 1769. There were only 3000 Spanish speakers in California when the Yankee took over the place (there were far more speakers of native American languages, an estimated 30,000), and the culture was radically different than anything that exists in contemporary Mexico (if there is a parallel, it would be the remaining gaucho culture in Argentina).

Immigration is a policy, it really shouldn’t have anything to do with historically fuzzy notions, whether of Ellis Island or a romanticized hispanic past.

Logically, if the immigrants aren’t here, then there kids wouldn’t get the outdated ‘birthright citizenship’ which all countries that had it except US and Canada have done away with.”
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But we do have that law, & those children are just as much “native born Americans” as you or I.(Assuming that you are a US citizen like me.)

M_Young ,
I visited the West Coast recently & read up a little on its history & you’re correct that it was sparsely populated in colonial days.But Spanish influence far preceded American.
My point about culture was simply that Hispanic culture has been present in the Americas since Columbus & long before there was a USA.It didn’t suddenly emerge with recent immigration.And sure, Hispanic culture adapts to changes in society just as others do.

‘Logically, if the immigrants aren’t here, then there kids wouldn’t get the outdated ‘birthright citizenship’ which all countries that had it except US and Canada have done away with.’

The Law exists. Deal with it.

‘It really hasn’t. Certainly in California. The first Spanish settlement in California was in 1769. There were only 3000 Spanish speakers in California when the Yankee took over the place (there were far more speakers of native American languages, an estimated 30,000), and the culture was radically different than anything that exists in contemporary Mexico (if there is a parallel, it would be the remaining gaucho culture in Argentina).’

Since you admit that there was a take-over, it follows logically that there is no such thing as a valid claim by Yankees [ your choice of words ], and that there is no reason for a reasonable person to accept the validity of any claim made on behalf of [ your words] Yankee. Unless you wish to pursue the argument that take-overs are a valid way of establishing claims.

“One of the most positive and beneficial things about having so many Spanish speakers in the United States is that it gives Americans a chance to improve their notoriously pathetic record with foreign languages.”

I think it’s great if Americans speak other languages in addition to English, but the truth is Americans don’t *need* to know any language other than English. International business is conducted in English. We’re not like Europe, which is comprised of many small countries right next to one another with people who speak different languages. For them, having the ability to speak different languages provides real, practical value. It’s not just a nice thing to be able to do.

“I just don’t see border fences as all that threatening to Americans. What am I missing here?”

I agree. My biggest objections to a fence is it would be ugly and expensive, and I don’t like the idea of having to have a fence around our country’s borders. Aside from those reasons, I doesn’t seem bad.

“Except that even if we assume cultural fusion to be good, our current system works against assimilation, because we are discouraged from asserting that our own culture has the rebuttable presumption of supremacy.”

Don’t worry about Immigration! People will stop coming sooner than later to a country of majority of poor old people and majority of poor young people as US is due to become. Most retirees have no savings. And since already almost 50% of of public school students low income, getting 3d world qualtiy education according to report. You should put two and two together and come up with the logical equation.

I for one would call the U.S. Constitution outdated. I wonder whether the impossibility of reconciling an intrinsically very difficult-to-change corpus of fundamental laws penned for an eighteenth-century farmers’ federation with the needs of a 20th- and 21st-century global imperial superpower is not precisely where the time-consuming but not irrelevant polemics about “judicial activism” and “legislating from the bench” come to play. On the one hand you have the “originalists” or “strict constructionists.” On the other hand you have the “living document” contrivers, who sometimes want to save the U.S. Constitution from its own weakness but more often are taking advantage of the need for flexibility to push their own left-wing cultural agenda (see the ACLU, whose hypocrisy on the Second Amendment is by the way breathtaking).

The obvious problem is that in an era in which plebiscites count for everything, the U.S. is too divided not just politically but in its social tissue – the way we relate to family, self and other – and can no longer produce the requisite consensual near-unanimous supermajority to adopt a set of fundamental laws that are at once reflective of the country’s present condition and respectful and remindful of its historical heritage.

I just don’t see border fences as all that threatening to Americans. What am I missing here?

Someone who wants to pop over the border to Tijuana for a weekend now has to pass through this militarized checkpoint. This isn’t a “North Korea” scenario by any means but represents a true loss of freedom. Another example is laws that prevent illegal aliens from getting drivers licenses. Sounds like a good idea, until you stand in line at the DMV to find out that you have to have a birth certificate just to get a drivers license. Security measures always annoy the law abiding, so it behooves us to make sure they are truly necessary.

As for assimilation, I’m not sure it really matters that much. Fact is, America is a big place and it’s not too hard to avoid other cultures if you don’t like them. I’m not really convinced that America is becoming less monocultural anyway. We always were pretty diverse. Maybe it is just more on display now, since in the past we were more Japanesque and steadfastly ignored minority cultures.